Chapter 167Katie's POVI woke to shout, which wasn’t unusual around my house… but there was an extra male voice in the mix, and that dragged me through the dozing state to the other side.I was hearing my parents’ voices. That couldn’t be possible, they should have still been in Europe. Even if that man at the restaurant had called them directly, there was no way they could have…It turned out I didn't do what my parents were capable of. But as more memories of the past twenty-seven hours or so came back to mind completely out of order, I realized the really important detail was that I couldn’t leave Cephus out there to deal with them unless I wanted more trouble to brew.I pulled on my more modest dressing gown, stepped into my slippers and kept going from there straight out the door… and stopped fast as I almost collided with my parents in full professional attire, plus Cephus looking like he’d managed to put on a fresh suit and easily outclass them.When all of them turned to star
Chapter 168Cephus’ POV“There is an intricate web of families who live all over Tasmania and have interests all over the world. Maybe it seems incongruous with the image of the place, but that’s just to our advantage, isn’t it? We enjoy an elite status here and are mostly able to manage things however we want, and there are few people here who have connections beyond this island that would lead them to suspect we are anything but regular wealthy people.”“Well, I believe that, because I couldn’t even tell the th out of you!” The more they talked, the more the whole situation was doing my head in. “You’re home way earlier than should have been possible too, if I’m to believe that itinerary you left behind.There’s no way you could have gotten back here so soon… I suppose if you found out I was kidnapped the very instant it happened you’d be close, but the time frame just doesn’t seem right.”“Maybe we were somewhere a little closer to home already.” Mum’s shrug made me feel like I w
Chapter 169Katie's POVI smirked and shimmied my shoulders a little. “Oh, Daddy, I’m pretty well aware of what Cephus can do if I let him close to me.”“Have some dignity, Katie,” Mum snapped.“Like you do when you’re getting a man’s kneecaps smashed up because he had ideas about planning for the future of our neighborhood that didn’t align with yours?”She rolled her eyes, and then her whole head as well. “Rocky Halloran had it coming, trust me.”Something about that pushed my buttons in a way no other part of this mess had yet. “Trust you, Mum? Why should I trust anything that comes out of your mouth when you’ve done nothing but lie to me and sit on everything you know about me for your e I was born, probably?”Daddy stepped in between the two of us, so I had to recoil even as I was lunging to get in her face. “Don’t you be histrionic, Katie, and show your mother the respect due her.”That was how it always worked with the two of them. Mum would blow up about something, and look t
Chapter 170Katie's POVI should have known he wasn’t going to wait to be called back like a good little boy.“Ever all right here, sweetheart?” He practically danced past my parents and slung an arm across my shoulder. I was pulled against his side, my breast pressing hard against his muscular torso. I hadn’t had time to put on a bra, so the contact lanced through me in a way that made me feel ready to slide back into bed before I’d even gotten breakfast… and maybe with company, too.“Just thrashing out the details of the wedding.” I dared to tip my head against him, trying to feel the hard muscle I knew was packed around his shoulder through his sleek suit. It seemed a bit awkward to be playing around with this kind of intimacy when the most that had happened between us was that kiss that hadn’t exactly filled him with uncontrollable desire, and my parents knew damn well it wasn’t like we’d met normally and made a connection that way.But the more I settled into the idea of what
Chapter 171Cephus’ POVJust thinking about the Italian contingent, you’re going to have to choose between the Capriottis and the Rosens, to begin with. Both, and you’re liable to have someone pull out a gun eventually. They might restrain themselves enough not to shoot, but I wouldn’t count on it with the Italians, they love going full mob with things, and the flash of a muzzle tends to ruin the event anyway.”I tried not to burst out giggling. In the space of a handful of hours, I’d gone from possibly dying a technical virgin at the hands of unexpected captors, to getting into an engagement with a man slightly out of my league that might see me becoming very wealthy in my own right, if that man’s sense of honor worked the way I thought… to needing to work out how to not die possibly still a virgin at my wedding reception from a stray gunshot.It was certainly going to be a good way to get to know the family, though. “Do I get some say in this? Like, can I see who the options are fo
Chapter 172Cephus’ POV“I’m not like one of your usual little boys who is too afraid to even touch you. If you try to play games with me, I won’t allow you to assign me different rules.”“You know what I think,” I muttered, “you have a problem with expressing intimacy with a woman unless there’s a point to it.”“Spoken like a young woman who has never used intimacy without a purpose—and that being a purpose that pleases her and nobody else.”“Who else am I supposed to be looking to please?” I demanded.“If you intend to be intimate with me, you will need to be focused on pleasing me.”“That sounds a little bit like your personal fantasy, Mr. Cephus.”Cephus turned away from a very meticulously spread piece of toast on the jam to frown at me. “No, Katie, I can’t say it’s ever been a fantasy of mine to have to put a young woman with a bad attitude back in her place. Some men may feel differently but you’ve chosen wrong in this case, if that was what you were hoping for.”“It’s not lik
Chapter 173Cephus’ POV“She’s going to judge you,” said Cephus after we’d been driving for maybe ten minutes.I had been occupying myself in trying to smooth down a crease in my black skirt that just kept on puckering up while I was sitting down; those words were exactly what it took to send me into an accelerated frenzy of smoothing.“I’m telling you this because you need to hear it if you want to make this work,” Cephus added. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you at all, quite the opposite. But she’s going to look at you right now and see a little girl on her way to a job interview.”“Isn’t that what this is?” I retorted, mostly just to have something to say.Cephus snorted. “You’d better hope not. If she had a say you would already be out on your arse.”I clenched my hands into fists so hard I started as my nails started to pierce my skin.“It’s really up to you.” Cephus’s tone was conversational, his arms relaxed as he steered. “If you want to have this turn out the sam
Chapter 174Cephus’ POV“It was my idea. I’m more than happy to forgive the debt for the privilege of humiliating them,” said Cephus.Angel crossed her ankles. “Well, I don’t disagree in principle. She’s not much of a find though, is she?”Cephus’s grip on my hand was starting to hurt, and I wasn’t having any luck getting his attention to make him let go of me. “I see her having potential.”“Ah yes, potential… the metric of underachievers,” Angel smirked at me like she’d been waiting to use that one on someone for a long time. “I’ve been looking forward to an opportunity arising to use that one.”I wasn’t going to take that jab and just stay silent. “I’m so happy for you.”I cringed into Cephus’s side when Angel began looking me up and down in a new, much more appraising way, hating that it was to him like that. I didn’t think he felt much of anything in return.“I appreciate your spirit,” she said. “But that is only going to take you so far. You’re defensive when it comes to your s,
Chapter 183Katie's POVAll I see is a blur of him as I try to get my mind and body to function so I can answer him. My legs hit the floor as he pushed me down, releasing me to walk away. His hand grips his hair as he stares at the gun in his other hand and back down to me.“No. No, it’s not true,” I whimper, tears still falling. “Don’t listen to him,” I plead, looking him straight in the eyes.“Silence,” he orders, walking over to me with his hand raised. Will he hit me? Will he hurt me?“That isn’t true!” I shoot back. “Nothing he is saying is true…”Silence ensues for a long second before Cephus speaks. “Get the ropes and tape!” he yells to Mack. I’m lying on the ground on my side when his face comes into my vision.“Was it all a lie, Katie? Was it all some fucked up lie so that you could get into my head? So you could get the inside job done and walk away unscathed?” His voice is so loud in my ears, I push away from him.“Was it?” he shouts, demanding a response, his fingers gripp
Chapter 182Katie's POV“I see it as more of a protective arrangement for both of us. There are legal protections for each of us… incentives to keep one another’s secrets.”I fixed him with what I hoped was the most vicious look I had in me. “I never went to the cops after you kidnapped me, didn’t go running to my parents begging them to find someone to break your kneecaps, and you thought you needed some other way of getting me to keep your secrets?”“It matters…” I can hear the anxiety in Mack’s voice. Something is very, very wrong.“Why does it matter? She was nothing before this whole incident and will be nothing after everything takes place. She’s clean. I know it.” Cephus sounds confident, and though I know I have done nothing wrong, if Mack convinces him I did something, I know I am as good as dead.“It matters because I know she’s not clean. After Jared called me and told me what Luccio said, I did a little digging on her and found some shit out.”Horror fills my mind. What i
Chapter 181Katie's POV“I was seven or eight, in a regular primary school not far from here.” His right hand moved, grasping for his phone, then he left it alone and pulled my hand he was still holding onto his knee, placing both of his hands over it. If the ring I was wearing was digging in, he didn’t give any sign. “It might surprise you to hear this, Katie, but I was not the best of children.”“Shocking revelation.”“I was always targeting kids a bit younger, a bit smaller. The ones I knew wouldn’t be able to give me any shit in return. Except this one time, there was this kid—Billy Burke, I remember his name vividly—and he did give me shit. He told me he wanted me to stop pushing him around and trying to scare him, and no he wasn’t going to give me his lunch money, by the way. I’d never run into this situation before when I was running this scam, so I panicked a bit. I hit him in the face. Told me to his parents.”I didn’t know what to say to this. It took me all too quickly b
Chapter 180Katie's POVEven when it gets worked out in the end, it sucks for long-term relationships.”It had to be even harder to find someone you could enter into the sort of long-term relationship most people were especially keen on with. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised Cephus had jumped at the chance to get me on board as a future wife.And speaking of my future husband, I had half-expected he wouldn’t be there when I returned. Then when I saw him sitting on the couch in front of the TV where he’d been when I ran out to get in Caroline’s car—where he’d probably slept for all I knew, he’d gone out the night before and hadn’t been back before I admitted defeat and crawled to bed—I half-expected to spot Angel somewhere in the room in the next moment. She didn’t have anything further to add to her roster of manipulations for the moment: we were alone.“What was your day like?” asked Cephus without looking at me. I let my bag slip by degrees from my fingers, frozen in place by the p
Chapter 179Katie's POV“Cephus isn’t supposed to be a part of this side of things, he can’t do it… and I doubt you’re in a position to ask your mother for assistance. Caroline is an ideal choice.”I didn’t like it, but she was right. I couldn’t go about this the wrong way if I ever wanted to be on Cephus’s good side. I didn’t want to go about it the wrong way. And while I was surrounded by Cephus’s family I needed to make connections unless I wanted to be treated the same way I was on my own. Caroline seemed like the safest option there so far.“If you’re sure I won’t be inconveniencing you,” I told Caroline. “I could use the help. I don’t have much experience with the whole wedding business, that much is for sure.”Caroline broke out in a little golf clap of delight. There might actually be some benefit in spending trying to absorb as much as I could of her elegance. “I’m so pleased to help. Now, I was thinking, I have the whole of tomorrow afternoon off work, so that would be a g
Chapter 178Katie's POVI sat up with a gasp.It was just like the morning before when I had woken to unexpected voices. But this time I was in a strange bed again, and at least one of those voices didn’t seem familiar at all.I’d learned my lesson from the day before. I couldn’t get myself into the single bathroom in the apartment, but I pulled on a proper outfit, brushed out my hair, and cleaned my face thoroughly with some wipes. I didn’t dare put on makeup without a full mirror, but I was young and fresh enough that I could probably get away without it.Once I was decent, I made a quick and quiet tidy of my room and then stepped up to the door for a bit of strategic eavesdropping before I joined the action.A childish female voice was doing most of the talking. “She’ll need someone to guide her through the process.”Cephus’s voice sounded both amused and exasperated. “Someone who has never been even close to getting married before?”“You know exactly what Caroline means.” The thi
Chapter 177Katie's POVI kept trying to convince myself that what I was craving was the worst craving anyone had ever had, including anything that had been thought up by a brain on pregnancy. But it was ridiculous to be so worried about whether I did or didn’t sleep with him when I was already making myself vulnerable to him, right? Or was this just how I was convincing myself to go along with wherever my lust took me?I don’t think about looking at my plate. Then when Cephus abruptly slid his chair backwards and stood, I startled like a tiny animal that could run away if provoked further. I knew damn well I couldn’t run.Cephus came to my side and put his hand out for mine, drawing me to my feet when I complied.“You have sauce on you,” he said and pointed it out on my shirt—his fingertip pressing slightly into my breast in a way that was, I’m sure, entirely necessary.I looked down at his hand there. Well, I’d managed to at least try to eat something.I thrust my chest forward in
Chapter 176Katie's POV“Madonna and child.” Cephus folded his arms and leaned back; it felt like an acknowledgment that I’d landed a hit, but I didn’t have any idea how. I’d just been trying to give a voice to my frustrations. “So you know a little bit about art, then.”“I think that’s kind of something I picked up through pop culture actually,” I said. I was hoping to screw with him while I seemed to have an advantage, and he did appear to deflate a little in response. “You’d be more eager to get a leg over if I was the kind of girl who t art and how to engage with you because I have any desire to ‘get a leg over’. And I have no intention of scorning you because you lack cultural polish. I assure you that I will be able to provide for you sexually in every way you might require.”“What kind of statement is that? Trust me, I’m a sexy beast, even though from the way I behave you would expect pretty much any Arctic land to be less frigid than I am?”“Do you want me to provide referen
Chapter 175Katie's POV“Am I supposed to believe you are shy?”I was so startled by Cephus's Voice that here I dropped the capsicum I’d been fidgeting with. It rolled across the bench, and Cephus caught it with one hand while he continued dicing its unlucky sibling with the other.“I guess you wouldn’t,” I admitted, “but if any situation was going to make me feel that way… I mean, we’ve gone from you having me dragged out If bed to trying to cook with me?”“You’ve got to roll with the challenges life presents you sometimes, Katie,” said Cephus, rolling the second capsicum into the path of his knife.“Are you talking about me here or you?”“Both of us, for once.” His expression visibly dulled. It struck me then just how much more animated he had become since we had first met. It was just a handful of hours but there was someone behind the mafia man front he was slowly letting me see, whether by choice or unconsciously I did not know.It bothered disappearing again. It was messing wi